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Henry Siddons Mowbray
Born	Henry Siddons (1858-08-05)August 5, 1858 Alexandria, Egypt
Died	January 13, 1928(1928-01-13) (aged 69) Washington, Connecticut
Nationality	American
Education	Alfred C. Howland, Léon Bonnat
Movement	Orientalism

Henry Siddons Mowbray (August 5, 1858 – 1928) was an American artist. He executed various painting commissions for J.P. Morgan, F.W. Vanderbilt, and other clients. He served as director of the American Academy in Rome from 1902 to 1904.

Early life

Mowbray was born of English parents at Alexandria, Egypt. His father, John Henry Siddons, represented a British bank in Alexandria; he died of hyperthermia a year after his son was born. Mowbray's mother moved to America with her son. When Mowbray was five, his mother died, burnt alive in a domestic accident caused by lamp fuel. Left an orphan, the boy was adopted by his aunt, his mother's sister, and her husband, George Mowbray. The family settled at North Adams, Massachusetts. After a year at the United States Military Academy at West Point, he went to Paris and entered the atelier of Leon Bonnat in 1879, his first picture, Aladdin, bringing him to public notice. He studied with Bonnat until 1883.

Artistic career

In 1886, he became a member of the Society of American Artists. His painting Evening Breeze received the Clark Prize at the National Academy of Design in 1888, and he was elected to associate membership in the academy. He was made a full member of the academy in 1891.

Subsequently, Mowbray was best known for his decorative work, especially the ceiling for the mansion of F. W. Vanderbilt in Hyde Park, New York, circa 1899; and The Transmission of the Law, Appellate Court House; the ceilings in J.P. Morgan's Library and The Morgan Library & Museum's Annex building; as well as the ceiling and walls of the library of the University Club, all in New York City. This last was executed in Rome, where, in 1903, he was made director of the American Academy. Other works include murals in the homes of C.P. Huntington and Larz Anderson; and the Howard M. Metzenbaum U.S. Courthouse in Cleveland, Ohio. He taught at the Art Students League of New York circa 1901. He was a member of the U.S. Commission of Fine Arts from 1921 to 1928.

Among Mowbray's pupils were the painters Mortimer Lichtenauer, Florence Wolf Gotthold and Clara Taggart MacChesney.

See also

• Léon Bonnat
• List of Orientalist artists
• Orientalism

Notes

1. Smithsonian American Art Museum
2. "H. Siddons Mowbray". Smithsonian American Art Museum. Retrieved 2017-09-29.
3. Gerald M. Ackerman, The Orientalists of the American School (ACR Édition Internationale, Paris, 1994), 140
4. ^ Chisholm 1911, p. 948.
5. ^ Wilson & Fiske 1900.
6. John G. Waite Associates (October 2018). VANDERBILT MANSION NATIONAL HISTORIC SITE HISTORIC STRUCTURE REPORT VOLUME III FIRST FLOOR (PDF). National Park Service. Retrieved 13 April 2024.
7. MLM staff 2006.
8. Thomas E. Luebke, ed., Civic Art: A Centennial History of the U.S. Commission of Fine Arts (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Commission of Fine Arts, 2013): Appendix B, p. 549.
9. Andrew J. Cosentino (17 November 1983). The Capital Image: Painters in Washington, 1800–1915. Smithsonian. ISBN 978-0-87474-338-8.
10. Petteys, Chris, Dictionary of Women Artists: An international dictionary of women artists born before 1900, G.K. Hall & Co., Boston, 1985 p. 458

References

• MLM staff (2006), Architectural History: A Public Institution part 1, The Morgan Library & Museum, retrieved 15 April 2013
• Wilson, J. G.; Fiske, J., eds. (1900). "Mowbray, Harry Siddons" . Appletons' Cyclopædia of American Biography. New York: D. Appleton.

Attribution:

•  This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Mowbray, Harry Siddons". Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 18 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. p. 948.

External links

Media related to Henry Siddons Mowbray at Wikimedia Commons

• Mowbray page at artrenewal.org
• Discussion of Mowbray's work in the Rotunda of the Morgan Library

• 1858 births
• 1928 deaths
• 19th-century American painters
• 19th-century American male artists
• 20th-century American painters
• Art Students League of New York faculty
• American muralists
• American male painters
• American Orientalist painters
• National Academy of Design members
• 20th-century American male artists
• British expatriates in Egypt
• British emigrants to the United States